1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to processing compressed video data for streaming to mobile devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
The streaming of video data over the internet is known, in which compressed video is broken into packets, transmitted over the network and then reassembled at a browser. In order to display high quality video images at the browser, data packets are buffered, reassembled and the video information is then decoded.
Increasingly, substantial bandwidth is available over internet connections and browsing systems generally have large storage capacities and substantial processing facility. In mobile devices, all of these parameters are restricted, particularly transmission bandwidth.
A problem occurs with known streaming approaches in that the nature of video compression often results in very large frames being followed by a substantial number of much smaller frames. Thus, when streaming such frames over a transmission channel of limited bandwidth (or of limited digital baud rate) potential transmission bandwidth may be wasted while the system waits for the next available highly compressed frame. Under these circumstances, it is possible that less than optimum video signals will be coded and decoded than what would be possible were the transmission bandwidth to be more closely optimised.